Under the Sea Quilt

This fun quilt is made with tall nine patch blocks and hand-embroidered sea creatures.

I made this quilt in 2010-2012 for my younger daughter and the bright, cheerful colours match her personality. It has been washed and dried many times over the years.

Details

These embroidery designs were a block of the month from Willowberry Designs in 2010. They are super adorable.

I used 6-strand embroidery floss to stitch these on light blue cotton fabric.

Most of the embroidery was just simple backstitch, with a few other stitches for special effects. (You can see a tutorial for back stitch here.)

This mama and baby whale are enjoying the sunshine.

The sea turtle is dressed for a formal occasion.

This shark has an audience as he’s swimming along.

Imagine how fast you could clean if you had eight arms!

I wonder if this fish has had lip injections?

This jellyfish looks like a sweet little girl. I’m sure she would never sting anyone!

This seahorse looks regal hanging around by the seaweed.

These are the most romantic snakes I have ever seen.

The starfish are sharing a laugh as the whale swims away.

To set the embroidered blocks, I used tall nine patch blocks.

To make the math easy, these are 6″ x 9″ blocks, so the small units are 2″ x 3″.

Nine patch blocks are easy to customize. Check out this tutorial about how to make a nine patch block any size.

I didn’t put too much thought into the colour placement of the nine patch blocks. I just made a bunch of colours and then laid them out in an arrangement that I liked.

The quilting was done with straight diagonal lines. This was a perfect choice because it doesn’t compete with the embroidery.

Even after all these years, my daughter still loves this quilt and I do too.